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| Chon Day eBay listing accessed September 10, 2025 |
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Chon Day eBay item description |
A copy of Corey Ford's The Office Party (1951) sold this past October by Space Cadets of Conroe, Texas, once belonged to financial writer Lawrence Richter Quinn. It was personalized for him by the book's illustrator, New Yorker cartoonist Whitney Darrow, Jr., in 1987, thirty-six years after publication. Later the book became the property of comics historian Bill Bush.
While the world of acceptable office humor in The New Yorker had changed greatly over those intervening years, one might not surmise that change from Darrow's lively drawing of a curvaceous blond secretary shown from behind. She wears a revealing party dress and sits at a manual typewriter.
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Back in 1951, a buck could buy you a nice, if cheaply bound, cartoon book such as The Wild, Wild Women by the similarly wild, wild Virgil Franklin Partch. A copy originally belonging to someone named Jack is sketched with an original self-portrait of the artist and signed Vip, as he commonly abbreviates himself, on the artist's canvas. It is inscribed "To Jack! from the world's oldest cartoonist," a curious thing to write in the year one turns thirty-five. It must have been an inside joke. Jack's book found its way to the collection of cartoon historian Bill Bush and thence from his estate to Space Cadets of Conroe, Texas, which in turn listed it on eBay.
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| Virgil Partch eBay listing ended October 22, 2024 |
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| Virgil Partch eBay item description |
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Larry Quinn is Lawrence Richter Quinn, a financial writer. His copy of Man Bites Man: Two Decades of Satiric Art (A & W, 1981), edited by Steven Heller, later became the property of cartoon historian Bill Bush. The book is personalized by Heller with an inscription from 1982, by cartoonist Bill Lee with a lewd drawing of unknown date, and by cartoonist Edward Koren in 1984. It was sold last month on eBay.
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| Printed cartoon by Lou Myers. Inscribed and signed by Steven Heller 8/16/1982, the year after publication. Signed by Bill Lee with a drawing of a mooning man singing "Moon over Miami." Signed by Edward Koren with a biting drawing dated November 28, 1984. |
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| Steven Heller eBay listing ended October 22, 2024 |
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| Steven Heller eBay item description |
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Pat and Charles Searle's copy of Sex and the Single Child (1969) by Sam Levenson was inscribed to the couple by illustrator Whitney Darrow, Jr., a full decade after publication. Darrow included an original charcoal pencil drawing of a young boy writing the dedication on the wall of a house while a girl peers around the corner. The book somehow found its way to the collection of cartoon historian Bill Bush of Houston and from his estate made it's way to Space Cadets of Oak Ridge North, Texas. It was sold on eBay just over a week ago.
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| Whitney Darrow, Jr. eBay listing ended October 20, 2024 |
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| Whitney Darrow, Jr. eBay item description |
Note: I can read the writing on the wall. Original art by The New Yorker's Whitney Darrow, Jr., is always welcome on this blog. Go ahead, try me.
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